of grace than it was at the
beginning of the nineteenth century?

No one would be mad enough to urge such a retrogression as the
abandonment of labour-saving machinery would involve. Indeed, it would
be impossible; for, in speaking of its evils, I freely recognize that
not only would civilization perish without its beneficent aid, but that
every step forward in the history of man has been coincident with, and
in large part attributable to, a new mechanical invention.

But suppose the development of labour-saving machinery should reach a
stage where all human labour was eliminated, what would be the effect on
man? The answer is contained in an experiment which Sir John Lubbock
made with a tribe of ants. Originally the most voracious and militant of
their species, yet when denied the opportunity for exercise and freed
from the necessity of foraging for their food, in three generations they
became anaemic and perished.

Take from man the opportunity of work and the sense of pride in
achievement and you have taken from him the very life of his existence.
Robert Burns could sing as he drove his ploughshare through the fields
of Ayr. To-day millions who simply watch an automatic infallible
machine, which requires neither strength nor skill, do not sing at their
work but too many curse the fate, which has chained them, like Ixion, to
a soulless machine.

The evil is even greater.

The specialization of our modern mechanical civilization has caused a
submergence of the individual into the group or class. Man is fast
ceasing to be the unit of human society. Self-governing groups are
becoming the new units. This is true of all classes of men, the employer
as well as the employee. The true justification for the American
anti-monopoly statutes, including the Sherman anti-trust law, lies not
so much in the realm of economics as in that of morals. With the
submergence of the individual, whether he be capitalist or wage-earner,
into a group, there has followed the dissipation of moral
responsibility. A mass morality has been substituted for individual
morality, and unfortunately, group morality generally intensifies the
vices more than the virtues of man.

Possibly, the greatest result of the mechanical age is this spirit of
organization.

Its merits are manifold and do not require statement; but they have
blinded us to the demerits of excessive organization.

We are now beginning to see--slowly, but surely--that a faculty